Where High Gets Low.
Like a cavalcade of Amazons: Willem De Kooning’s third series of women, from the 1950s. At MoMA. (Photo by C-M.)
Hey Folks:
My year-end round-up of year-end round-ups is now up over at Gallerina, with trademarked Occupy Cardboard Sign ratings system.
Thanks very much for reading C-Mon in 2011. I really appreciate it. See you on the other side.
xox,
C.
Painting, 1948, by Willem de Kooning. (Photos by C-M.)
As I’m sure you’ve well read by now, the Willem de Kooning retrospective at MoMA is all kinds of gangbusters. I’m not going to get into some dissertation about what he and his work signified, because I think there have been plenty of those — among them, the comprehensive 500-page catalogue. But I did want to highlight one of the aspects of the show I really dug: the black and white paintings from the late 1940s — mainly because I’m a sucker for black and white, but also because they seem to revel in a certain gritty New York City-ness (that seems to no longer exist). They also look like a type of proto-graffiti, what Jed Perl describes in New Art City in the following way: “De Kooning’s nitty-gritty New York was all knock-you-in-the-teeth actualities, all surprising particulars: the dramatically contrasted sizes of adjacent buildings, the abandoned lots and demolition sites, the oil stains and graffiti on the pavements, the reflections of neon signs on wet streets.”
This is also an opportunity to pimp my podcasts on New York City in the time of the Abstract Expressionists. Many more pictures after the jump.
de Kooning: A Retrospective is on view through January 9 at the Museum of Modern Art.
Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: de Kooning: a Retrospective, at MoMA — the black and whites.’
A graffiti/street art tribute to historian and Museum of Modern Art director Alfred Barr, by Daniel Feral. See it in the old Donnell Library windows across from MoMA, as part of the exhibit Pantheon, starting this Saturday.
My New York Datebook is up over at WNYC, including gobs of space devoted to the all-kinds-of-hot German Expressionism show at MoMA (that’s a detail of a work by Egon Schiele peeking out from above).
Where I’m blabbing about Andy Warhol’s Empire. (Image courtesy of MoMA. © 2011 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.)
Where, for the day, I’m watching the Empire State building and Tweeting (’til roughly 6pm E.T.). (Photo by C-M.)
This Friday, I’m gonna spend the entire day watching Andy Warhol’s marathon eight-hour film Empire and Tweeting about it — in the company of WNYC, Hyperallergic, ARTnews Magazine and architecture and literary experts Mark Lamster and Bryan Waterman. Please join in!
Find all the deets here.
Jay Rosenblatt films are coming up at MoMA on Oct. 13. A preview above. See the Hitler clip from Human Remains.
Sit back and enjoy the simulation: Klaus Löwitsch in Fassbinder’s dystopic sci-fi flick. (Image courtesy of MoMA.)
When German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder died of a lethal combo of sleeping pills and cocaine (don’t try that mix at home) in 1982, cinemaphiles lost one of the most talented and prolific directors in movie history. At the forefront of the New German Cinema movement — which captivated international audiences and launched the award-winning careers of Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff and Wim Wenders — Fassbinder emerged as the enfant terrible of the group. He had a notoriously hedonistic personal life and was a prodigious filmmaker, producing more than 40 flicks in just 15 years. As a director, he had a dazzling ability to navigate historical drama, contemporary melodrama, realism, socio-political landscapes and stylistic excesses with an aplomb that we venture to guess has never been equaled on celluloid. Yes, we loves us some Rainer!
So, it was with great anticipation and a remarkably clear head that we ventured out to catch a screening of his little-seen venture into the realm of sci-fi — namely, his 1973 mini-opus for German television, World on a Wire. The film recently underwent a glorious restoration which premiered at the 60th Annual Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year (where Fassbinder’s longtime combative muse, the great German actress Hanna Schygulla, was honored with a lifetime achievement award). Beginning this Wednesday, April 14th, it will have a brief run at MoMA — which gave us the opportunity to see what the fuss was all about.
Simply put, Fassbinder has done it again. His adaptation of American author Daniel F. Galouve’s Simulacron-3 is hardly groundbreaking for its man-versus-machine themes or for its portrayal of a dystopian society where the future looks shiny and new, but harbors dark secrets. As a sci-fi flick, it is clearly stuck in the early 70’s: there are computers the size of a small rhino and special effects that would make Steve Austin proud. Yet, we were mesmerized. Perhaps it was the set, filled with shimmering modular furniture. Or maybe it was Fassbinder’s homage to one of his cinematic idols Douglas Sirk, making heavy use of reflective surfaces to frame the relationships between his characters. Or maybe we had just been hankering for a time when film directors used imagination, timing and composition to tell a story — without having it end up looking like a video game. (James Cameron, we’re looking at you.)
Two outback teens await a not-so-promising future. (Image courtesy of New Directors/New Films.)
SAMSON AND DELILAH
Directed by Warwick Thornton
101 minutes
Screening Thurs., March 25th and Sun., March 28th
The legend of Samson and Delilah has been influencing artists since the sand and sandal days of yore. From Michelangelo to Rembrandt to Basquiat, the strongman and the seductress have been depicted in paintings, statues, grand operas and of course, movies. Dozens of them. The latest is the feature debut of Australian director Warwick Thornton. A beautifully filmed update, it transplants the biblical tale to the modern-day Australian desert, specifically, a remote Aboriginal community that is home to two teenagers destined to fall in love.
Samson is a petrol-huffing teen whose only purpose appears to be to daydream and torment his family. Delilah cares for her aging grandmother, an artist who spends her days crafting large canvases for which she is paid a pittance — but which upscale art galleries then resell for a tidy sum. The first third of the film is Jeanne Dielman-meets-the-outback, repeating the bare bones existence of a young couple that will come to rely on each other when the world turns its back on them.
And ye Gods, does it ever! After a family tragedy, the duo find themselves outcasts from their village and take to the road in a stolen car. Here, the film takes on a slow ride down a very dark tunnel that threatens to overwhelm the lead characters and the audience in turn. While good movies can be made from the darkest of themes — Last Exit to Brooklyn, Dogville, a good chunk of the Bergman ouevre — it takes a great commitment from the part of the audience to sit through what is essentially a passion play of the underprivileged. We watch as Samson begins to lose himself completely to his addiction, while Delilah braves humiliation and physical harm in order to help them survive.
This is not an easy film to sit through, but we were grateful that Thornton has the touch of a true filmmaker in being able to tell a story visually, with forceful, rich images. His movie may not be on par with a similar auteur approach (Terrence Malick comes to mind), but it is nonetheless a notable achievement for a new director. If the pain and suffering of the title characters is meant to be an allegory for the indigenous people of Australia, it certainly succeeds. It’s an admirable debut from a director whose future work we look forward to, perhaps after a few drinks to steady our nerves.
À Bientôt
***
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